re: Pope Francis to issue edict on Climate Change, Greed, Social Inequality.

quote:

---

The role of the church is to influence the world.

---

This is wrong. Not in 2014. It's role is simply to guide it's members. Trying to influence the world for 1,500 years led to a some good but a lot of bad.

But even if true:

quote:

---

He's attempting to do that in the way he believe is best

---

That doesn't mean he gets a free pass. His ideas are utterly wrong and damaging to global prosperity. Capitalism has done more to unleash the collective genius and productivity of mankind than anything that ever came before and catapulted our technological innovation 5,000 years ahead of the pace we were at previously. It has also done more to raise the standard of living the majority of people than anything that came before, especially communism or socialism which brings everyone down to the lowest levels rather than lifting the poor to the highest levels. "Income inequality", a terribly misused word, is not the same as standard of living. Just because my neighbor makes more than me today than he did yesterday does not mean I can afford less of something today than I could yesterday. The true greed is from those wanting to take the wealth earned by the successful rather than earn it themselves.